LENE BERG

Lene Berg, born in Oslo, lives and works in Berlin and New York. Educated a film-director, Lene Berg works with film, photography and texts. Using different medias and fictions in her installations, she explores relationships between contemporary images and inherited conventions, between clichés and facts, between politics and rules of narration. During the last years she has been particularly interested in the distribution of ideas, and the conditions of artistic freedom in relation to political agendas.

Selected solo exhibitions and presentations include: Cooper Union, New York 2008 (closed after 2 days), Fotogalleriet, Oslo 2008, Whitechapel Gallery, London 2007. Group exhibitions include: The upcoming Manifesta 8 in Murcia, Contour, Mechelen 2009, Biennale Cuvée, Linz 2009, The Sydney Biennial 2008, The Taipei Biennial 2008, Headlines & Footnotes, Henie Onstad Art Center, Oslo 2008, Conspire! Transmediale, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin 2008 and Pensée Sauvage, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt 2007.

Screening at “Waiting for the Political Moment”: information will follow shortly

 

PETRA BAUER & DAN KIDNER

Petra Bauer is a Swedish artist and filmmaker. She is concerned with the question of film as a political practice, and the role of moving images in the construction, presentation and representation of histories. Recent solo exhibitions include, Me, You, Us, Them, Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea, UK, 2010; and Welcome to Production, 2010, Lunds, Konsthall, Sweden. Recent group exhibitions include Momentum, Nordic Biennale, 2009; Greenroom, Bard College, US, 2008; Becoming Dutch, Van Abbe Museum, 2008; Berlin Biennale, Together with the Production Unit, 2007; Disclosure, Gasworks, London, 2007; and Populism, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania, 2005. She has also organised several exhibitions, screenings and talks.

Dan Kidner is a curator and writer. He is director of London-based contemporary art production company, City Projects. Recent productions include new films from Knut Åsdam, and Anja Kirschner and David Panos. He curated the group exhibition, Depression, with Lisette Smits for Marres, Centre of Contemporary Culture in Maastricht, 2009, and regularly contributes to magazines and journals including Frieze, Exit Express and Mousse.  

Screening at “Waiting for the Political Moment”: The Nightcleaners (1975)

Screening of the film “The Nightcleaners” (90m, 1975) and performance by Petra Bauer and Dan Kidner, who will present their research into the British film collectives of the 1970s. They will critically examine the way that collectivity became the default strategy and film the medium of choice for many on the left during this period. Groups being considered include the Berwick Street Film Collective, Cinema Action, and the London Women’s Film Group.

 

INE LAMERS

Ine Lamers (Netherlands,Wijchen, 1956) is an artist and filmmaker based in Rotterdam. She works with photography, slide and video installations, and film to explore the narrative potential of still and moving images. Many of her works, especially her large photographs, evolve around the human environment and urban architecture. Some of her recent films explore the relation between cinematic illusion, mimicry and identification, reflecting specifically on the fragile construction of female identity in classical cinema. Her films were  screened and nominated at amongst others Vermont International Film Festival (Burlington, USA, 2004); the International Film festival Rotterdam (the Netherlands, 2005, 2010) and Viper Video and New Media Festival (Basel, 2006) and presented in art institutions: Kunstverein Cologne (Germany, 2005) Modern Art Museum Tolyatti (Russia, 2007), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 2002, 2009/2010), Museum Center Krasnoyarsk (Russia, 2009) . Her work can be found in the collections of amongst others the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, the Netherlands).

Screening at “Waiting for the Political Moment”: USTALA , 2005 -2009

In the video work USTALA, Ine Lamers explores the notion of dystopia. The story takes place in the Russian model city Tolyatti, which was built on utopian foundations in the 1950s and 60s. Significant political and historic events—the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dismantling of the Soviet Union—transformed the collective paradise into capitalist chaos. Utopia became dystopia. In the film a group of Russian adolescents loiter among the silent monuments and the debris of this former Communist paradise. Their repetitive acts seem to suggest that they are caught up in a ritual. Do they want to escape from this apocalyptic setting? USTALA was created by use of improvisation and in collaboration with a group of Russian actors (amateur and professional) and scriptwriters. The original concept — a re-enactment of a poetic 8 mm amateur film about the construction of the city of Tolyatti — was revised during the working process. USTALA developed into a cyclical film in which staged and documentary images intermingle with historic archive material.

Please visit for more information: www.pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/fama/staff/inelamers & www.RONMANDOS.nl (Dutch)

 

RABIH MROUÉ

Rabih Mroué (1967) lives and works in Beirut. Mroué is an actor, director, playwright, visual artist, and a contributing editor for The Drama Review (TDR). He is also a co-founder and a board member of the Beirut Art Center (BAC), Beirut. In 2010 Mroué was awarded an Artist Grant for Theatre/Performance Arts from the Foundation of Contemporary Arts, New York and the Spalding Gray Award.His complex and diverse practice, spanning different disciplines and formats in between theater, performance, and visual arts, has established Mroué as a key figure in a new generation of artistic voices in Lebanon. Employing both fiction and in-depth analysis as tools for engaging with his immediate reality, Mroué explores the responsibilities of the artist in communicating with an audience in given political and cultural contexts. His works deal with issues that have been swept under the rug in the current political climate of Lebanon, connected to the enduring marks left by the Lebanese Civil War as well as more recent political events.

Recent exhibitions: Performa 09, New York, 2009; 11th International Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, 2009; Tarjama/Translation, Queens Museum of Art, New York, 2009; Sjarjah Biennial, Sjarjah, 2009; Soft Manipulation – Who is afraid of the new now?, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 2008; Medium Religion, Center for Art and Media (ZKM), Karlsruhe, 2008; Manifesta 7, 2008, Fortezza/Franzenfeste, Bolzano/Bozen, Trento, Rovereto, 2008; Les Inquiets. 5 artistes sous la pression de la guerre, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2008; In Focus, Tate Modern, London, 2007; and Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, 2006.

Screening at “Waiting for the Political Moment”: The Inhabitants of Images

The Inhabitants of Images is one of the artist’s “lecture-performances,” and was first presented in 2009. It is comprised of three parts and is a complex analysis of the use and misuse of images for political and ideological purposes in Lebanon and the Middle East. Starting from a poster with an image of an (otherwise impossible) meeting between former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri (1944–2005) and former Egyptian president Gamal Nasser (1918–1970), the images in the piece set off a flow of musings and speculation touching upon the fabrication of political mythologies and manipulations. Playfully and with not inconsiderably wit, Mroué discreetly puts forward instruments of critique for engaging with these images, and sketches fragments of counter-narratives—bits and pieces that remain to be assembled in an uncertain future.

 

KATARINA ZDJELAR

Katarina Zdjelar (Serbia, Belgrade, 1979) is an artist based in Rotterdam. Her practice consists of making video, sound and text pieces, performances, book projects and creating different platforms for speculation, knowledge building and exchange. Her work explores notions of identity, authority and community and revolve around individuals who challenged by simultaneous inhabitation of different languages, perform themselves through practicing, remembering or reinventing themselves.

Screening at “Waiting for the Political Moment”: We need to have a civil conscious and basta!

Please visit for more information: www.katarinazdjelar.net